I have received a request from someone for permission to present one of our older Peak Oil figures in a planned book, a figure that can be compared with that published by Colin Campbell and me in 2003. That image is shown below and can be found in my book from 2012, Peaking at Peak Oil. Colin and I are planning to write a follow-up article to the, now, 14 year old analysis from 2003. At that time, the massive expansion of the fracking industry was not foreseen so it is interesting to compare the prognosis that we are now working with to that we published 14 years ago. In 2003 the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that oil production (not including fracking) would reach over 120 million barrels per day (Mb/d) in 2030.

When we made our calculations of future oil production in 2003, we estimated that oil production in around 2011 would be 85 Mb/d which is what subsequently occurred. However, due to fracking, oil production did not decline following this. In 2015 oil production by fracking was around 4 Mb/d and there has also been an increase in natural gas liquids production through fracking.

If we compare this with the prognosis we have now made (see the figure above) we can see that fracking has led to an increase in oil production of around 1.5 billion barrels per year as well as an increase in natural gas liquids (NGL) production. The new prognosis now sees that maximal oil production occurs five years later than the 2011 peak, i.e. in 2016. It will be very interesting to see what level oil production reaches this year. The fact that Peak Oil has been delayed by some years means that our prediction for production in 2030 is now increased from 60 Mb/d to 71 Mb/d.

The IEA’s current prediction for 2030 has been reduced from 120 Mb/d to 98 Mb/d despite the increased production from fracking (see the figure above). At the same time, the IEA in its World Energy Outlook 2016 report has warned that production may be significantly lower in 2025 due to insufficient investment. If this declining trend continues until 2030 then it could well approach the 71 Mb/d level. When I met Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, last fall we noted that we are approaching similar levels of oil production in our predictions.

I am a regular reader of your blog and additionally the weekly post of Tom Whipple at resilllience.org. http://www.resilience.org/resilience-author/tom-whipple/.
There is a big insecurity about the possible production of several countries: Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Nigeria not pumping at their maximum rate. Is this making a big difference in your prognosis?